Each week (more or less) I send out an e-mail to my congregation with my thoughts including stuff I've read over the past week that I want to pass along. I haven't put my lists up on the blog in a good while so here are some that go back a ways, but if you missed them, they are still worth reading, clicking on, listening to or watching.
Stuff I've Referenced in Sermons
- On Sunday, March 8, as a part of my sermon I read a David Letterman Top Ten List "The Top Ten Things Overheard in the Jesus Household." Here's the video of Letterman reading the list--his presentation was funnier than mine.
- Also that Sunday, I told about Stephen Colbert's interview of Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland who introduced a bill to post the 10 Commandments in the Senate and House chambers. When Colbert asked him to name the 10 Commandments, he could only name three of them. Here's the video.
- Finally, also in that sermon, I told a story that I took from an article on Exodus 20 by preaching scholar Tom Long. It's worth reading in full.
- By the way, I've caught up uploading sermons to the church web site, so if you missed one, take a listen here.
Recommended Reading, Listening and Watching
- UCC minister Yvette Flunder was invited to speak at an historically black Baptist college. That invitation raised plenty of protest--because she's a lesbian. She also happens to be a great preacher and a prophetic leader who continues to draw together a network of African American churches who welcome LGBT people. We will have her as a keynote speaker at the Missouri Mid-South Conference of the UCC annaul gathering this June in Columbia.
- If you're young enough to know who Macklemore is, then you have seen the powerful video for his song "Same Love," about a gay teenager coming to terms with his sexuality and marrying his partner. What you may not know is that the wedding scenes were filmed at a UCC church.
- One of my clergy colleagues from MORE2, rabbi Doug Alpert of Congregation Kol Ami, was on KCUR's program Central Standard talking about incidents of anti-Semitism in Missouri.
- "Stop Calling Children's Gun Deaths 'Accidental'"--I think this essay's title needs no explanation.
- I have mixed feelings (and thoughts) about abortion, but I found this op-ed meaningful and persuasive: "No Regrets: Reclaiming Abortion as a Force for Social Good"
- Okay Star Wars nerds, guess what? The Star Wars universe has its first official gay character.
- According to Conservatives--especially Conservative Christians--poor people are poor because of their moral failures. This great article from The Week demonstrates whys such a view is flat out wrong!
- Hooray for the Presbyterian Church USA which expanded its definition of marriage this week to include LGBT people!
- You may have read about the Catholic Church in California which installed sprinklers on its front porch to get rid of homeless people (because that's what Jesus would do????????). Thankfully this church in Washington, D.C. found a different way to keep homeless people from camping out on its property.
- 5 Truths About Church Decline
- Interesting thoughts about TED Talks being religion for secular people.
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